Speed, agility, reaction time, and power are some of the determining characteristics influencing the athleticism of an athlete. Accordingly, athletes strive to improve their athletic performance in these areas, and coaches and recruiters tend to seek those athletes that have the best set of these characteristics for the particular sport.
One method for evaluating and comparing athletes' athleticism involves having the athletes perform a common set of exercises and drills. Athletes that perform the exercises or drills more quickly and/or more accurately are usually considered to be better than those with slower or less accurate performance for the same exercise or drill. For example, “cone drills” are routinely used in training and evaluating athletes. In a typical “cone drill” the athlete must follow a pre-determined course between several marker cones and, in the process, execute a number of rapid direction changes, and/or switch from forward to backward or lateral running.
Previously, efforts to meaningfully compile and evaluate the timing and other information gathered from these exercises and drills had been limited. For example, while the fastest athlete from a group of athletes through a given drill may be determinable, these known systems do not allow that athlete to be meaningfully compared to athletes from all over the world that may not have participated in the exact same drill on the exact same day. However, a universal and objective athleticism rating system for accurately detecting and recording athletic performance has now been described in PCT application No. PCT/US2005/040493 for Athleticism Rating and Performance Measuring Systems, assigned to SPARQ, Inc. of Portland, Oreg.
An aspect of such athleticism rating systems is the collection results from various athletic performance tests for each athlete and calculating an athleticism rating from the data. The performance test results are typically recorded manually for each athlete and are entered or uploaded as performance data to a computer, such as a web server, to have the athleticism rating calculated. Such manual handling of the performance test results is generally manageable for the relatively small numbers of athletes on an individual team or at some athletic camps. But for larger numbers of athletes or other participants, manual handling of the performance test results can be unwieldy and can introduce errors in the transcription of the data.
Accordingly, the present invention includes an athletic performance data system having an athletic field data collection system for obtaining athletic performance data and athlete identifying information for plural athletes at an athletic performance event. An athletic data host server receives the athletic performance test data and athlete identifying information from the athletic field data collection system, and the athletic performance data and athlete identifying information are posted to an athletic performance web site in a separate, personalized page for each of the plural athletes.
In one implementation, the present invention includes an athletic field data collection system that provides automated handling and uploading of athletic performance data, such as for use in calculating athleticism ratings. In one implementation, the athletic field data collection system is portable and self-powered to be operable in the outdoor field environment of many athletic activities. The system provides accurate and reliable identification of the performance data for each athlete, minimizes the manual handling of the data by performance evaluators, and provides prompt uploading of the data for calculation of an athleticism rating. In addition, the system may provide an athleticism rating for each athlete as a separate web page that can be personalized by the athlete.
Additional objects and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the detailed description of the preferred embodiment thereof, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.